"Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here is what matters most: [T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights. The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". There are a couple of loose ends, but the big picture is, SCO lost. Oh, and it owes Novell a lot of money from the Microsoft and Sun licenses", GrokLaw writes.
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Member since:2005-08-26
Member since:2005-07-06
MS and Sun bought licenses from SCO (which SCO had the right to sell) and Novell is entitled to part of the money that MS and Sun paid (95% or what was it?)
Actually no.
The agreement was that if SCO was bought out, they lose rights to the code; SCO was bought out by Caldera, SCO lost rights to the code, so therefore, if Microsoft or Sun needed to purchase rights, they had to go back to the holder whom it reverted back to after the Caldera buyout.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Judge_Novell_Not_SCO_Owns_UNIX_Copy...
SCO was acquired, therefore, SCO owns nothing. Like I said, Microsoft and Sun paid the wrong people for the technology. Considering that these arrangements were most likely confidential, both companies worked with SCO with good faith that SCO had the rights to the intellectual property they were attempting to licence.
Member since:2007-05-04
You're wrong, the contract specifically prohibited SCO from entering into those licensing agreements, which forms the basis for one of Novell's counterclaims against SCO. If Novell really pushed that issue instead of asking for money, they could likely have the licensing agreements declared invalid. It makes sense for them to go after the money instead though, which is what they did.
Section 4.16b of the APA states:
(b) Buyer shall not, and shall not have the authority to, amend, modify
or waive any right under or assign any SVRX License without the prior
written consent of Seller. In addition, at Seller's sole discretion and
direction, Buyer shall amend, supplement, modify or waive any rights
under, or shall assign any rights to, any SVRX License to the extent so
directed in any manner or respect by Seller. In the event that Buyer
shall fail to take any such action concerning the SVRX Licenses as
required herein, Seller shall be authorized, and hereby is granted, the
rights to take any action on Buyer's own behalf. Buyer shall not, and
shall have no right to, enter into future licenses or amendments of the
SVRX Licenses, except as may be incidentally involved through its rights
to sell and license the Assets or the Merged Product (as such term is
defined in the proposed Operating Agreement, attached hereto as Exhibit
5.1(c)) or future versions thereof of the Merged Product.
Member since:2007-05-04
Considering that Microsoft and Sun would already have to line up behind Novell, IBM and Red Hat, it wouldn't be worth the legal fees. After Novell is completely finished with SCO, which should be after the remaining issues are tried next month, the IBM trial will immediately proceed. After the court rules that IBM hasn't infringed SCO's copyrights, Red Hat will likely ask the judge overseeing their case against SCO to lift the stay and allow it to proceed.
And with this court ruling, SCO's sales are going to be affected because while it was clear that SCO was unstable, with this ruling they are essentially insolvent. Novell has been granted judgment on the fact that SCO owes them large amounts of money....the only question remaining for trial being how much.
Member since:2005-07-06
It would piss IBM off, make Sun happy - and they would easily win customers who are currently looking for a future direction for OpenServer/UnixWare products
...which is one of the reasons Novell probably won't open-source it. IBM is one of their biggest customers, and they don't want to help Sun out any more than they can help it.
Member since:
2005-07-06
You could almost suspect Microsoft planned it this way from the start.
Doubtful; if Novell owns all the rights to UNIX, then Microsoft and Sun probably have the right to sue SCO selling something they first don't own, falsely claiming ownership of property, then if they sent any of the contracts by mail, those involved could be charged with mail fraud - in NZ referred to as 'fraudulently using a document'.
Microsoft would gain nothing out of purchasing SCO - if Sun and Microsoft do go to court to sue SCO, the settlement might include dividing up SCO's assets - given they own virtually nothing, nothing would be gained.
As for Novell and Microsoft purchasing them - I would say that Novell will either hold onto them or give them fully under an opensource licence - CDDL would be great; finally have one UNIX out there which would provide Solaris with OpenServer and UnixWare compatibility.
It would piss IBM off, make Sun happy - and they would easily win customers who are currently looking for a future direction for OpenServer/UnixWare products - many POS terminals out there currently use OpenServer backends. Yum Brands being one of the biggest.
Edited 2007-08-11 19:35